Choice
by darkshiptrash
Summary: It was because of the choice he had made then, when he was feeling weak and stuck in a very complicated situation, that he was here today.


Title: Choice

Prompts: [Action] Arts and Crafts

[Quote] 'You must do the things you think you cannot do.' —Eleanor Roosevelt

Year: 3

Wordcount: 3115

August 26th, 1972

Diagon Alley, London, England

There was a rather pretty looking boy sitting by the dusty, old bookshelves of the bookstore at the end of the street. He was reading a book he had opened on top of his lap, his eyes slowly moving through the pages with an almost childish excitement. He wore a long, dark robes that she deduced to be of an expensive sort, if the rich fabric was to be any indication. His shoes were polished clean as he drew his legs closer to his chest and smiled, so lost in the book that he didn't even notice when she walked towards him, green eyes casting down on this curious little boy whose smile was enough to brighten the room they were currently occupying. The boy lifted his head immediately and a pair of rather fine dark gray eyes stared up at her as his smile ceased and was replaced with a polite indifference. "Can I help you, Miss?"

Lily Evans merely grinned at the boy. "What are you reading?" There was a strange inkling of a familiarity when she looked at the boy. Though, she couldn't quite remember where exactly she had seen him before. "You look as if you are enjoying it very much."

He seemed to be a bit startled by the question. She couldn't understand why, though. "Frankenstein." He whispered the words to her as if it was a very dirty secret only they knew. "If you see my mother, don't tell her. She doesn't like me reading muggle books very much, if at all."

"Well, as I don't know your mother, I cannot imagine I would be able to tell her even if I could." She told the boy as she sat down beside him on the ground. "I am Lily, by the way." She drew her hand towards him.

He accepted her hand somewhat bashingly as if he wasn't used to talking with other children his age. "Well, nice to meet you, Lily." He smiled at her politely. "I am Regulus."

September 03, 1978

Hogwarts, Scotland

"You know, Regulus, I preferred it so much more when you were reading books and not consuming a huge amount of an alcohol like a local drunk." It was Lily Evans with her fire like red hair and gleaming, bright green eyes that stared down at him with a pleasant looking smile from across the staircase he was currently occupying. "What happened to that boy?"

Regulus lifted his head at his old acquaintance. "I am extremely sorry to have to be the one to tell you this piece of information, but he had to grow up. So, you are stuck with me now." He took another sip of the firewhiskey, the taste bitter against his tongue. He didn't quite know why he was even drinking. He didn't even like firewhiskey.

"Well, I am sorry to hear that. As much of an absolute asshole he could be sometimes, I rather liked that boy." Lily sat down beside him with a somewhat soft, bitter smile. "How are you finding Gryffindor?" She looked down at the Gryffindor tie that was loosely hanging around his neck. "I cannot honestly say the red suits you, though."

"Believe me, darling, I already know. Bright colors and me are mortal enemies. We have a long history of hatred. You see, it all began when I was seven and my mother made me wear purple. A fucking purple, can you believe the nerve of her?" He shivered at the memory. Sirius had spent the entire night laughing at him, as if he didn't look equally hilarious in that yellow robe their mother had forced on him. But then again, it was Halloween. He could forgive his mother for that incident. It wasn't her fault she didn't inherit her mother's spectacular fashion sense. Not much on the other crimes she had committed in the name of humanity. "As for your first question, I am doing better than I thought I would."

She gazed at him curiously. "Why did Dumbledore decide to resort you, anyway?"

"Dumbledore thought that I was in danger of being bullied because of the prejudice my housemates were holding against me for my role in the Dark Lord's fall during the war. He really didn't have to, though. I faced death eaters. I think I can handle a couple of angry teenagers."

"I don't know, Reggie. Teenagers can be really terrifying."

"I lived with those assholes for five years. I know all of their secrets. If anything, they should be afraid of me."

Lily smiled at him warmly, hand touching his own in the dark. "I am glad you are back, Reggie. I really missed you while you were gone."

He took another deep sip of the bottle, grinning wickedly at her as he put the bottle down on the ground. "My, will you ever cease to surprise? Here I thought you hated me."

"What do you know? You gradually grew on me. Believe me, nobody was more surprised than me." She chuckled slightly, hitting his shoulder playfully in a childish jest. "I am just joking. Don't make that face. We are friends, aren't we? I could never hate you."

He stared at her for a moment dryly. "We were never friends, Lily. You should know better than that."

"I know." She whispered pointedly with her head down, her head brushing against his shoulder. "Believe me, Reggie, I know that. I haven't forgotten."

November 13, 1978

Far too easily than she should have, Lily was slipping into the memory of the old times. To the times when things used to be less complicated, when they were both happy enough to indulge in the fantasy of each other, away from the harsh reality of the world they lived in. Before every little thing that had forced them apart.

"Potter?"

Lily hummed in the acknowledgment as she sat with her back against his own in the small office members of the Slug Club currently occupied. "He was nice enough to date for a while."

"What happened?"

"What always happens. We get in the arguments. We make up. And then we get in the arguments again. I've had enough. So, I broke it up with him."

"We argued." He reminded her bashingly. "You didn't break up with me. Well, not until I forced your hand."

"Only seldomly. And we always had our reasons. With James, it started to seem like we were arguing for the sake of arguing."

"I am glad you had someone. Even if I am not entirely apologetic you ended it with him."

She blinked her eyes, turning her head towards him. "Are you really?"

"Of course. Even if it's not with me, I would always want you to be happy."

She turned to face upward to the wall. "You know, I wonder sometimes if you perhaps loathe yourself, Reggie. It would certainly explain some of your masochistic tendencies."

"Believe me, darling, I sometimes wonder that too."

She turned her head towards him and asked him softly, her voice breaking as she spoke. "Why did we break up, Reggie?"

"Because you are a smart witch, and it was wise of you to leave me at the time. I was acting rather foolish." He turned his head towards her finally and a somewhat bitter smile filled his face.

"You were afraid." She told him, green eyes matching dark gray ones. "We all were. It wasn't your fault."

"Not an excuse." He whispered, turning his body towards her. "I've hurt you very deeply then. All because I was too afraid to realize what was the most important thing to me."

She stared at him somewhat weakly, afraid to speak. "And what is that?"

He didn't hesitate to speak. "You." And then he leaned down to lightly kiss her on the forehead. "It had always been you."

She lifted her head softly towards his face. "We were never easy, were we?"

He smiled. "We wouldn't be ourselves if we were easy, darling." He said. "That's what makes us worth all the pain and suffering. Because in the end, I know we'll be together. No matter how long that takes."

"Well, there's at least one good thing that came out of your disownment."

He chuckled. "Oh, yes. My mother has been really upset with me when she found out how deeply I've gone and betrayed the so-called dark lord. But as always, my father came to the rescue. Bought me a rather nice house in France and everything." He then spoke softly, dark gray eyes boring into her eyes somewhat intensely. "When you are ready, come and find me. I will always be here."

She glanced at him. "You wouldn't get tired and go courting another witch?"

"You speak as if you don't know me as well as you do." He chuckled, raising her hand to his face slowly, kissing the small pinky finger ever so slightly. "From the first moment we've met, I was groomed to be yours."

She smiled somewhat bitterly at this boy she had loved so passionately once, and still did even now, for what felt like decades after. "I did know you before." She stated the fact with a deep regret of what came after. "But I am not quite sure anymore."

"Well, all you would have to do is to discover me once again. Inch by inch, and it would be like we never parted."

"Tell me then." She whispered. "What happened to you?"

"Mistakes I did. That's what happened."

October 20, 1978

When they were together, he used to draw her all the time. Drawing have always been a passion he'd possessed since he was a small child. Granted, his mother didn't take to it far too kindly, tearing apart his pieces of work like they were garbage and leaving him to rot on the cold, dirty floor of the basement. But Aunt Druella had always encouraged his talent. For that, he had always been thankful to Aunt Druella. "Can you please stop moving?"

Lily merely grinned as she dramatically swayed her long red hair over her shoulder as she laid down quite comfortably on the soft couch beside him. "You always ask me that." She said. "But do I listen?"

"You never listen." He agreed fondly, a slow smile slipping onto his face. "You always did prefer things your way, Lily. If only your way wasn't so loud and apparent, it wouldn't have been such a problem so often."

"Like your way is any better." She snorted in a very unladylike manner. "You have a rather awful habit of plotting whenever things go downhill. There's plan A and then there's B, and so on. You always have a plan. It's rather impractical. We all know that even the most perfect plan disrupts when put in practice."

"You'd benefit from having a plan once in a while." He suggested casually as he drew her profile. "You can't always rush into dangerous situations without a plan."

"Here's where the main difference between me and my housemates lay. I actually think before I act." She looked rather proud of that fact.

"That you do, darling." She did think. It didn't mean that she didn't head straight into dangerous situations, anyway.

Lily glanced at him through glassy eyes. "What was your plan if you didn't manage to convince Dumbledore to make you a spy for the Order?"

"Well, I was thinking of blackmailing some people into helping me to get out of the country."

She stared. "Blackmailing?" She gaped at him disapprovingly. "Why is it always blackmailing with you?"

He smirked at her somewhat wickedly. "Well, I am a Slytherin." He said. "It's what we do."

She shook her head. "You forget, Reggie, that you are a Gryffindor now. And that's not what we do."

"Regardless the color of the tie I wear, Lily, I would always be a Slytherin. It's in my nature."

She considered him for a long minute. "I am glad you are better now." She softly ruffled his dark hair. "That night you came to me, you were a mess."

"I couldn't quite face the consequences of bearing that mark." He whispered, remembering that fateful night far too well to manage to somehow forget. He had been so afraid. So ashamed of himself, of the things he had been forced to do in the name of the greater good.

When he decided to take the mark, it wasn't because he loathed muggles and the so-called blood traitors. But merely because it was what his mother had wished for, if the awestruck way she spoke of it was to indicate anything at all, and he had always done everything he could do to earn his mother's approval.

In the end, he decided his mother's hard earned approval wasn't worth losing his own soul over. "I couldn't bear the fact that I had been forced to take an innocent life and even now, I still cannot. They haven't done anything to deserve such a fate."

She stared at him in the understanding. But the truth of the matter was that she would never understand. It was just one of those things one could never understand unless they personally went through it. Which was why he was so glad that she had not. If living through it was a nightmare, then imagining her in that place with all of its heartless monsters with their dark ways, that was a living hell. "Regulus, it's over." She reminded him softly, taking his hand in her own. "We won the war. You don't have to be so afraid anymore."

He stared at her weakly. "Not for me." His voice broke as he spoke, the memories of nights he woke up screaming filling his mind as he put the sketching pad on top of the desk in front of him. "I still wake up screaming every night. The war may be over for you, but it's still very much present for me."

The tears in his eyes started to spill as Lily trembled and took him into her arms, hands tightening around his neck. "Oh, honey." She whispered against his neck as she held him tight till the night ended and he slipped into a sleep in her arms right there on the couch. For the first time in what felt like forever, he didn't have any nightmares.

October 11, 1978

When he awoke to the sound of a loud knocking on the door of the dorm he shared with three others, he didn't think he would find his older brother standing on the other side of the door.

"I — don't know what I am doing here. I don't even know if I am supposed to be here." Sirius was crying, tears falling down his eyes. "All I know is that I've been very stupid these couple of years. I shouldn't have blamed you for not doing anything to help me. What could you have done, really, without putting yourself into the same situation with me? I honestly can't fault you if you didn't wish to end up like me." His voice broke as he spoke, his face falling down. "Look, I won't blame you if you don't want to forgive me for leaving you behind in that fucking house, but — I really miss my little brother."

Regulus felt like somebody had gone and punched him in the gut. "I — Sirius —," But Sirius didn't let him finish.

"I understand. I wouldn't forgive me either. What I've done to you was really shitty. They probably didn't treat you well, did they?" And he started to turn on his heel much to his great frustration, leaving him no other choice but to grasp his arm by a force to stop him from leaving.

"Would you please listen to me?" He pleaded. "I don't hate you. I forgave you a long time ago. So, stop pitying yourself and look at me in the face." But when he did, Sirius immediately pulled him into a tight brotherly hug, his hold on him tightening even further when Regulus found himself hugging him back around the shoulders. "I missed you too, you fool. Why did you leave me in that house? I was so fucking afraid."

"I am sorry — I really am fucking sorry."

"I am sorry too." He said. "I should have done something. I should have."

December 08, 1978

"Regulus, do you remember? You've told me you believed we were going to end up together. No matter how long that takes." She looked at him with a warm, beaming smile. "Is there the slightest chance you still believe that?"

He leaned down to brush his lips lightly against hers. "What do you think?"

"Well, I think you like me very, very much." She told him with a beaming, slow smile as she put her hand against his chest, against the red tie that hung around his neck. "Which is why you are going to the Yule Ball with me."

"Is that an order, Your Majesty?" He grinned at her playfully. Lily merely smirked. "Well then, I gladly accept."

December 31, 1978

"Can I ask you something, Regulus? Why did you decide to defect? You could have easily stayed. You were an underage wizard. You wouldn't have received much of a punishment from the Ministry."

"Sometimes, older brother, even if it might be difficult, you have to do the things you think you cannot do. Things that you know may as well end up backfiring for you in the end. Because what matters the most that you do things that you think are the best course of action at the moment." He answered his brother as they both watched Lily and McKinnon glaring at each other disdainfully.

Sirius nodded his head in understanding, gazing at the two witches somewhat worryingly. "They're not going to end up murdering each other, are they?" He asked. "Because I would be really troubled if that happened."

He shrugged. "I don't know about you, but I really am not willing to find out what happens." And then he stalked away towards Lily, leaving his brother to fend for himself.


End file.
